the quiet rush of one breath (is all we're waiting for)
by TolkienGirl
Summary: "We can't expect everything to go back to normal, Ned," she says. "We just can't." [After Infinity War, MJ worries about Peter. Title from Ross Copperman's "Holding on and Letting Go."]


Senior year wasn't supposed to suck.

Logically, yes, MJ gets it. Senior year is the year of glory for everyone who has spent high-school being The Worst, the year of senioritis for everybody else. It isn't cool to be in AP classes, anymore—and at Midtown Science, was it _ever_ actually cool?

AP is all these nerds know.

So—MJ had her alternate path mapped out. Case in point: a reading list of Gwendolyn Brooks, Zora Neale Hurston, Meghan Whalen Turner (listen, historical fantasy is _way_ less geeky than high fantasy), and a couple Jane Austen adaptations thrown in for good measure. The stereotypical student journey wouldn't weigh her down. Leave the odyssey of college applications, the Charybdis of early acceptances, to the overinflated egos of Flash and co. MJ has her applications in, MJ has decathlon pinned to her resume, MJ has time to share her time, even if that just means sharing it between homework and her own expectations.

Then half the world turns to dust.

.

The summer is hell. MJ was in a bodega, sandwich in hand, when Mr. Lin crumbled into a heap of ash she could have covered over with her palm. MJ's mom survives, but her dad doesn't. Flash is gone. Ned isn't answering her calls.

And Peter—

.

She doesn't want to think about May Parker on her doorstep, the words, _where is he_ , tearing themselves from her throat over and over again, like MJ would know.

She doesn't want to think of her own sobs, choked into her pillow. New York was ravaged by fires, by clearing away the rubble of millions of lives.

.

In September, they all come back.

.

The world is so cruel, what with its ability to forget. MJ knows that there now exists enough PTSD to line up therapy sessions for the next millennium. MJ herself suffers from some of it.

(When Peter Parker showed up on her doorstep, she kissed him, open-mouthed and hungry. He kissed her back, clinging to her like he was drowning. They haven't spoken of it since.)

.

"We can't expect everything to go back to normal, Ned," she says. "We just can't."

"Believe me." Ned pops a potato chip into his mouth and crunches forcefully. Ned is refreshingly open about what happened. " _Poof_ , MJ. Poof. Then I was in the asphodel fields or whatever."

"You were?" He hasn't told her that yet. MJ is talking to her dad more, now, for obvious reasons, but she hasn't asked him either. "You—remember?"

Ned shakes his head. "No," he says glumly. "I just…I woke up on the sidewalk and people were screaming and shit. It felt like I'd slept a long time. That's all."

"We're probably not supposed to remember," MJ suggests. "Like…time got changed. I shouldn't know what did or didn't happen."

Ned shrugs. "Cosmic mysteries," he says. "I think—dust was the lucky way to go, considering."

MJ, who has been tallying up Peter's tardies and absences for no real purpose, isn't so sure.

.

She corners him after a review session one night. The city doesn't smell like fire anymore, but MJ feels like some part of her has never stopped burning. "Peter," she says. When he doesn't turn, she adds, "Spiderman."

He practically breaks his neck, swiveling his head like a goddamn owl. "What—"

"Oh, cut the shit," MJ says lightly, like she's not filled, top to toe, with misery. "I know."

"How long?"

"Before…before it all went down."

It's dark out. They're under the sickly parking lot lights, and this isn't exactly a safe place to hang out. Or it wouldn't be, with anyone else. MJ is in the company of the world's gangliest superhero. Unfortunately, she's also in love with the world's gangliest superhero.

"OK," he says. A little breathy, a little asthmatic, though she doesn't think Peter has asthma anymore. "OK, so you know."

"That's the point," MJ says. "I don't know. There's so much I don't fucking know."

She curses all the time, so that shouldn't surprise him. But somehow, it does, and Peter takes a step closer to her. "They're gone," he says hoarsely. She doesn't need powers to see the tears standing out in his eyes.

Captain America was buried last week, it's true. Tony Stark is still missing. Peter must have more insight into that than she does.

And it hits her hard—everything that she _hasn't_ put together, which is that Peter's secret identity probably meant a whole lot of love she never got to see. Of course there are more people in the world for Peter Parker to love; he's incorrigible that way. Never saw a stray cat without naming it.

That must be part of why he's so shut in on himself, lately. Paradise lost, friends dead, etcetera. Not the superhero saga they all dreamed of as kids, not the saga he almost got to live.

Peter, in his own saga, died.

"I'm sorry," she says, when what she means is _let me in, please let me in_. MJ's memory feels crystal-clear but maybe it isn't, maybe she lost pieces of herself when the world was set to rights again.

She wouldn't know.

"It's not your fault." He shrugs.

"I didn't mean it that way," MJ says. Sometimes he's so dense, for all that he's the smartest (second smartest, if she's being cocky) kid in school.

God, their senior year was supposed to be so different.

"I know." He doesn't look at her. "Just…"

"Ned doesn't remember," MJ manages to say, before her courage leaves her. Before she runs to him, and holds him, or something stupid like that. "But you do, don't you?"

He looks at her. He's grown so old. He looks like a man. "Yeah," he says. "I…"

MJ wants to ask so many questions, but she doesn't. Maybe some people would consider this a strength. "I missed you," she says instead. "I missed you so much. More than my dad." _Whew_. Even she didn't know she was going to say that.

Peter goes still, like she's surprised him. For a second, he doesn't seem as lost. "I don't know what to do."

"About me oversharing?" MJ asks, a bit giddily. "I mean, same. But…"

"About everything." Peter scrubs a hand over his face. "I came back. They didn't. And e-everybody else had to lose us anyway. May. Ned's parents. You—"

He needs to cry. Boys always need to cry and then they _don't_ , because they're fools, and they just keep sailing on and on, trying to find their way home.

 _Hey, losers_ , MJ wants to shout. _Even Odysseus cried_.

She doesn't shout. She just moves in, so that nothing is keeping them apart. Not time or space. Not the way that loss can change them.

MJ puts her hands on Peter's shoulders, and feels him exhale.

"Right," he whispers. It makes him young again. "Maybe this is just easier."

"What is?" MJ asks, though she hopes she's guessed right.

"Kissing you," Peter says, and leans in.

They got good at this, senior year, without even trying. (And yes, OK? Without any practice.)

Peter's lips are a little chapped, because boys don't wear lip-balm, and MJ shivers against the brush of his skin against hers. Then Peter tugs a little at her lower lip with his teeth, and she _jumps_.

"Sorry," he offers meekly. "Not good?"

"Actually, better." MJ feels like every ounce of blood in her body has rushed to her face. "Keep going."

He does.

.

It's amazing that they don't get mugged, making out in a parking lot after hours. MJ would very much like to see Spiderman in action, but what ends up happening is that they walk to the subway hand in hand.

"I want to tell you," Peter explains quietly. He offered to carry her backpack, but she wouldn't let him. It's weighed down with _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ , but that was her choice, and MJ carries her own burdens just fine.

"You can," she says. Trying to steady herself for the asphodel fields, or whatever it is that Ned doesn't remember.

(The world is so cruel, what with its ability to forget.)

Peter shakes his head. "I can't though," he says. "Not yet."

The tears on his face fall silently. Fortune is supposed to favor the brave, but MJ thinks it screwed up this time.

She keeps her hand in his.


End file.
